Part 9 (1/2)
”THE MAN WITH THE COUGH.”
I am a German by birth and descent. My name is Schmidt. But by education I am quite as much an Englishman as a ”Deutscher,” and by affection much more the former. My life has been spent pretty equally between the two countries, and I flatter myself I speak both languages without any foreign accent.
I count England my headquarters now: it is ”home” to me. But a few years ago I was resident in Germany, only going over to London now and then on business. I will not mention the town where I lived. It is unnecessary to do so, and in the peculiar experience I am about to relate I think real names of people and places are just as well, or better, avoided.
I was connected with a large and important firm of engineers. I had been bred up to the profession, and was credited with a certain amount of talent; and I was considered--and, with all modesty, I think I deserved the opinion--steady and reliable, so that I had already attained a fair position in the house, and was looked upon as a ”rising man”. But I was still young, and not quite so wise as I thought myself. I came very near once to making a great mess of a certain affair. It is this story which I am going to tell.
Our house went in largely for patents--rather too largely, some thought.
But the head partner's son was a bit of a genius in his way, and his father was growing old, and let Herr Wilhelm--Moritz we will call the family name--do pretty much as he chose. And on the whole Herr Wilhelm did well. He was cautious, and he had the benefit of the still greater caution and larger experience of Herr Gerhardt, the second partner in the firm.
Patents and the laws which regulate them are queer things to have to do with. No one who has not had personal experience of the complications that arise could believe how far these spread and how entangled they become. Great acuteness as well as caution is called for if you would guide your patent bark safely to port--and perhaps more than anything, a power of holding your tongue. I was no chatterbox, nor, when on a mission of importance, did I go about looking as if I were bursting with secrets, which is, in my opinion, almost as dangerous as revealing them. No one, to meet me on the journeys which it often fell to my lot to undertake, would have guessed that I had anything on my mind but an easy-going young fellow's natural interest in his surroundings, though many a time I have stayed awake through a whole night of railway travel if at all doubtful about my fellow-pa.s.sengers, or not dared to go to sleep in a hotel without a ready-loaded revolver by my pillow.
For now and then--though not through me--our secrets did ooze out. And if, as _has_ happened, they were secrets connected with Government orders or contracts, there was, or but for the exertion of the greatest energy and tact on the part of my superiors, there _would_ have been, to put it plainly, the devil to pay.
One morning--it was nearing the end of November--I was sent for to Herr Wilhelm's private room. There I found him and Herr Gerhardt before a table spread with papers covered with figures and calculations, and sheets of beautifully executed diagrams.
”Lutz,” said Herr Wilhelm. He had known me from childhood, and often called me by the abbreviation of my Christian name, which is Ludwig, or Louis. ”Lutz, we are going to confide to you a matter of extreme importance. You must be prepared to start for London to-morrow.”
”All right, sir,” I said, ”I shall be ready.”
”You will take the express through to Calais--on the whole it is the best route, especially at this season. By travelling all night you will catch the boat there, and arrive in London so as to have a good night's rest, and be clear-headed for work the next morning.”
I bowed agreement, but ventured to make a suggestion.
”If, as I infer, the matter is one of great importance,” I said, ”would it not be well for me to start sooner? I can--yes,” throwing a rapid survey over the work I had before me for the next two days--”I can be ready to-night.”
Herr Wilhelm looked at Herr Gerhardt. Herr Gerhardt shook his head.
”No,” he replied; ”to-morrow it must be,” and then he proceeded to explain to me why.
I need not attempt to give all the details of the matter with which I was entrusted. Indeed, to ”lay” readers it would be impossible. Suffice it to say, the whole concerned a patent--that of a very remarkable and wonderful invention, which it was hoped and believed the Governments of both countries would take up. But to secure this being done in a thoroughly satisfactory manner it was necessary that our firm should go about it in concert with an English house of first-rate standing. To this house--the firm of Messrs. Bluestone and f.a.gg I will call them--I was to be sent with full explanations. And the next half-hour or more pa.s.sed in my superiors going minutely into the details, so as to satisfy themselves that I understood. The mastering of the whole was not difficult, for I was well grounded technically; and like many of the best things the idea was essentially simple, and the diagrams were perfect. When the explanations were over, and my instructions duly noted, I began to gather together the various sheets, which were all numbered. But, to my surprise, Herr Gerhardt, looking over me, withdrew two of the most important diagrams, without which the others were valueless, because inexplicable.
”Stay,” he said; ”these two, Ludwig, must be kept separate. These we send to-day, by registered post, direct to Bluestone and f.a.gg. They will receive them a day before they see you, and with them a letter announcing your arrival.”
I looked up in some disappointment. I had known of precautions of the kind being taken, but usually when the employe sent was less reliable than I believed myself to be. Still, I scarcely dared to demur.
”Do you think that necessary?” I said respectfully. ”I can a.s.sure you that from the moment you entrust me with the papers they shall never quit me day or night. And if there were any postal delay--you say time is valuable in this case--or if the papers were stolen in the transit--such things have happened--my whole mission would be worthless.”
”We do not doubt your zeal and discretion, my good Schmidt,” said Herr Gerhardt. ”But in this case we must take even extra precautions. I had not meant to tell you, fearing to add to the certain amount of nervousness and strain unavoidable in such a case, but still, perhaps it is best that you should know that we _have_ reason for some special anxiety. It has been hinted to us that some breath of this”--and he tapped the papers--”has reached those who are always on the watch for such things. We cannot be too careful.”
”And yet,” I persisted, ”you would trust the post?”
”We do not trust the post,” he replied. ”Even if these diagrams were tampered with, they would be perfectly useless. And tampered with they will not be. But even supposing anything so wild, the rogues in question knowing of your departure (and they are _more_ likely to know of it than of our packet by post), were they in collusion with some traitor in the post-office, are sharp enough to guess the truth--that we have made a Masonic secret of it--the two separate diagrams are valueless without your papers; _your_ papers reveal nothing without Nos. 7 and 13.”
I bowed in submission. But I was, all the same, disappointed, as I said, and a trifle mortified.
Herr Wilhelm saw it, and cheered me up.
”All right, Lutz, my boy,” he said. ”I feel just like you--nothing I should enjoy more than a rush over to London, carrying the whole doc.u.ments, and prepared for a fight with any one who tried to get hold of them. But Herr Gerhardt here is cooler-blooded than we are.”